I also saw some sort of aquatic shrew running along the edge of a stream in the alps,

I thought that was neat.
I've seen Asian tree shrews, up close and personal, but never a water shrew.

Shrews are an underrated group of critters in my opinion, I haven't seen so many but I have really liked the ones I have seen. Tree shrews are an awesome group, I was fortunate enough to see them from time to time when working in Borneo. This was the first aquatic shrew I have seen and it was quite a pleasure, fascinating little creature.

Antonsrkn wrote:Just picked up a few more mammal lifers, nothing too impressive but did a bit of hiking in the Alps and saw my first Alpine Marmots (Marmota marmota). I also saw some sort of aquatic shrew running along the edge of a stream in the alps, very brief encounter lasting only about 10 seconds but I saw it run in and out of the water several times and then disappear along with the current. Seemed very at home both in the water and on the rocks.

Then some night hiking in the Black forest in Germany produced a pair of edible dormice (Glis glis). Also a good number of small rodents perhaps voles which I have not IDed.

The shrew would be either Neomys fodiens or Neomys anomalus, the former being the more likely candidate.

krismunk wrote:
The shrew would be either Neomys fodiens or Neomys anomalus, the former being the more likely candidate.

Btw. how did you do herping in Europe?

Thanks for the ID! I did decent in terms of herping but had some notable misses. No Vipera berus despite what I thought was good habitat. I found lots of Salamandra salamandra larvae in 2 different spots but it was very dry so unfortunately I was unable to turn up an adult. On the other hand I was very happy to see my first Anguis fragilis, my first species of legless lizard ever! A few different frog species and some sort of newts which I haven't IDed yet. In the end the herpetological highlight came during my birthday weekend when we spontaneously decided to head to the Austrian alps for some hiking, I was able to find a few Alpine salamanders. They weren't even on my radar until right before we left to the Alps, I did a quick bit of reading about them and made them my top goal. Within 20 min of beginning our multi-day hike I found the first one! I'll sneak a photo of the last individual in... Alpine Salamandra by Anton, on Flickr
Then cause this is the mammal thread, I'll toss in a photo of my latest mammalian lifer the Alpine marmot as well to stay on topic...Chunky Marmot by Anton, on Flickr

I had a great time in Europe and would love to get back for a bit longer and dedicate more time to herping, I think with a bit more time I could turn up quite a lot more. I really appreciate your info and advice from earlier, it was certainly helpful! Thank you again.

I don't have any pics of alpine marmots myself, only seen them (lots & lots of them, though) on a hiking trip from Matterhorn to Mont Blanc way back in the pre-digital days. Back then I was even less of a photographer than I am today and I pretty much thought photographing animals was inpossible, limiting myself to immobile landscapes. The one time a marmot finally did sit still long enough and close enough for me to try for a shot with my simple camera it malfunctioned (or I had simply forgotten to open the shutter, can't remember which, the other happened to me when a chamois came charging down the mountainside and stopped 5 meters in front of me )

Newt ID's should be simple - as should non-ranid anuran ID's.

...& I won't bother you with any of my slew of berus photos from various Danish localities over the course of the summer

That experience with the chamois sounds great, of course those things only ever happen when the camera battery is dead or its malfunctioning. I swear animals must have some sort of sixth sense as far as that is concerned.

I was really hoping to see both Chamois and Ibex but no luck with either.

This fall was the best run of new mammals in the US that I've had in years. Basically two factors contributed to this, working in new places and having friends that were trapping or netting. In addition to these, I was able to ID to the species 3 additional bats from my time in Africa this previous winter.

Thanks, I have some more bat pictures from last year, but as I am leaving for SE Asia tomorrow, I probably won't get around to posting them until at least late March. They are in the trip reports I did for mammalwatching.com

Antonsrkn wrote:Wow thats a good list, I'm particularly jealous of the cuscus species! And the sun bear as well! I'd love to hear how you encountered the bear.

We were spotlighting in Deramakot Forest Reserve in Sabah, it was in the crown of a tree. It started down the tree when it saw us and was gone in less than a minute. We had good full body views.

We also saw 6 Bear Cuscus in Tangkoko. The Waigeo Cuscus was basically a gimme, we saw 3 in the wild and 3 or 4 that were fed at a homestay. The Northern Common Cuscus apparently comes to scavenge at a homestay we were at, and we were still awake when it started down the roof.

Thanks for the extra info! In something like 8 months in Sabah (Danum valley and nearby) not far from where you were never saw a bear, we'd get them on our camera traps fairly consistently though. In both the field seasons I was there only 2 people saw bears, one was walking along the road during the day and the other walked up on someone who was crouched down working silently counting seedlings or something for hours out in the jungle. A 3rd person said she saw bear cubs but based on her description i'm almost entirely convinced she saw a pair of stink badgers.